Friday Evening Update

Today has been a day of status quo. It seems like the doctors and nurses have been focused on keeping Isaac's oxygen levels up and watching how he's doing with the ventilator. The cause of the lung disease is unknown. If it's a virus, there's nothing they can directly do about the virus except to make sure his body isn't stressed out about anything else (such as breathing) and he can focus on it. If it's a bacteria then they can treat it with antibiotics, which they've gone ahead and done just in case. But it sounds like we won't know for quite awhile. Virus cultures take 10 days or more to grow/show anything and they can't check for bacterial meningitis because they can't roll him on his back to do a spinal tap because of his lungs. So it will probably be awhile (if ever) before we get any answers on the cause.

The first day he also had trouble with his blood: clotting, low white blood cells, and low hemoglobins. So yesterday he got several blood products (FFP, cryo-precipitate, and a transfusion). But today his blood has looked okay so that's an improvement. He also physically looks a little better. He pretty quickly started swelling up and it was no time before he didn't really look like himself. He's always been this skinny baby, so it is so weird to see him all puffy. He's started shedding some fluid due to the lasiks so we look forward to him looking like himself again.

The next big hurdle is getting him off a ventilator and breathing on his own. He was close to having to move from the ventilator to an oscillator, but thankfully he never crossed the lines that would have necessitated that. As they can turn down the levels on the ventilator (the pressure and oxygen percentages they have to set) and he can maintain where he's at (they call these his "blood gases" which I think means his oxygen levels in his blood) then they can think about taking him off the muscle blocker, sedation, and and drugs that help with profusion. This is the path back to healthy lungs.

Last night and tonight, Julie and I were lucky enough to get a room in the Ronald McDonald Family Area here at CMH. It's like a tiny little hotel room and there are bathrooms with showers and a living room area. They assign the few rooms they have based on the seriousness of your child's condition and on how close you live to the hospital. Thankfully we've gotten rooms each night. It has been such a blessing to sleep in a bed and take showers and do our laundry within a 100 feet of Isaac. I know we'll be doing a lot more to support the Ronald McDonalds Houses after this and we encourage you to as well!

We've gotten tons of calls and emails. Thank you all for your prayers. We ask that you pray specifically for Isaac's lungs. That they would shed fluid and he would gain the strength to start breathing on his own again. Also, please pray for strength for Julie as well.